Found an Old Friend on Facebook

I had looked for Tiffany forever. She was my second grade best friend in elementary school. Her last name was so generic that I knew it was going to be difficult to find her - and she was so pretty that I knew she'd be married and have a new last name, anyway. I looked up marriage records online and couldn't find her. The last time I had seen her, I think I was 16. Her family had moved. There was no telling where she had gone.

Every year on her birthday, I used to think about her and wonder where she had ended up... and if she had a family. Was she happy? Was she still alive?

One night after a fruitless search on Facebook after I had found most of my other high school friends, I mentioned having no luck finding her. Another Facebook buddy told me that she worked as the reunion people-finder for her high school class and asked me if she could help me locate Tiffany.

We couldn't find any marriage records in the county both of us went to school in, so we tried locating her sister's name instead. A record came up, but the last name was foreign sounding, so I wasn't sure if it was really her sister - or just a fluke. Amazingly, I remembered that her grandparents - where she spent a LOT of time as a kid - lived on a street called Moon Mist. The name of her sister's street on the marriage license just happened to be Moon Mist! I was elated. I knew it was her.



I had no idea of Tiffany's last name or where she had moved away to. So I thought I would try to contact her sister on Facebook. She wasn't there, but her husband was. He had photos of his family on his Facebook page and I recognized Tiffany's sister right away. I sent him a message - at the risk of sounding like a stalker - and as soon as he friended me, I could see Tiffany's profile picture in his "friends". We began emailing again soon after and then snail mailing to catch up. She even sent me some cool 1980's stickers that she had saved up over the years - we go way back! We used to show off our sticker collections to each other as young girls. You know - back in the pink, purple, unicorn days!

It was so great to get in touch - and such a noble use for Facebook, which has a bad rap these days because of other people's misuse of it.

It was only natural that we would meet up in real life again. She was coming home over Christmas holidays to see her parents and we were going home to see my husband's... so we planned to catch breakfast together at the Cracker Barrel.



Her little girl was such a cutie.



Pigtails and spunk. If only we lived closer so the kids could play more often and really get to know each other.



My little leprechaun was a bit shy at first. That was back before we gave him his first hair cut this January. I miss those curls. {Now you can see how far behind I am with all my blogging topics since this meeting actually took place in December of 2010!}



Our guys were the bystanders - but they thoroughly enjoyed a hearty pancake breakfast. I'm sure both of them thought we were a little crazy going on and on about the good 'ol days and giggling like school girls at the table. I can't imagine a guy being as thrilled as we were to find an old elementary school friend. Guys are not really in to friendships like women are... and my husband wouldn't touch Facebook with a ten foot pole.

His latest assessment of Twitter is: "It's a chick's dream come true. Everyone talking at once and knowing what everyone is saying about you." Ha!



Oh, well - I'm sure glad that social media helped me find a sweet friend that I've always had in my heart and thought I had lost. Even though Facebook has it's down sides, it certainly deserves a little pat on the back for bringing old friends together.